Proto Man's Journal: Looking for Kalinka

Disclaimer: "Mega Man" and all other related characters belongs to Capcom

Author's note:

This story is sidequel of my other story "The Brewer", and based loosely off from the Ruby-Spears Mega Man cartoon.

It's suggested to read both of the stories together, since this story is took place between chapter 12 and 13 on "The Brewer" time-line. It is still okay if you only have time to read this, Proto Man will tell you what had happened by himself,.

I am happy to acknowage someone is reading my fic, you can also feel free to leave any comment here.

Warning: This is Proto Man's story, written in Proto Man's first person perspective. Not much of Mega Man will likely appear in here.

0. Prologue

So, I decided to spit it out, but nobody listen to me, so I write.

I don't know how to explain what I am, or what my name is. I have been called a lot of names. When I was first activated, I couldn't find my own name on my database, so my master, Dr. Wily had given me a name. Since then, I became the right hand man of Dr. Wily, most of the robot masters called me boss, pretty much like the convicts calling the prison guards in the TV drama, I don't like it. My freelance partner Enkar and Ballade call me Jackass, my sister called me Jerk, and Dr. Light called me…better not to mention that. After I fake my own death in the explosion, I was wandering on the streets in New York, the three run away from home kids I saved calling me Jake, since this name sounds more normal than the rest, so I accepted it. Since then, whenever people have asked about my name, I told them my name is Jake.

I have a birth name, a name that had never been used, nobody had ever called me that before i took off my helmet in front of Dr. Light. The funny thing is I didn't know about that name at all, until Cossack brings it up by coincidence, I insisted not to use that name because I am not that person, it is not right if I "stole" it From someone else, I will ruin it.

Up until recently, I have got a nickname as "Cracker biker", which was given by a group of cyclists I met on my journey. Terkina only called me "Cracker", and that name is reserved by her. Thanks to her propaganda, this nickname had become famous among the cyclists on the west coast, and it all because of the cracker tin on my rack…that's a long story to tell.

Only they didn't know, I am the most notorious robot in the world, the fearsome robot warrior, and a humanoid robot, Proto Man.

I am on my own, and that literally means I have complete freedom. The most direct reason led to this result is my master, Dr. Wily, has been kidnapped and being held hostage in some underground city in Siberia or some shit. I tried to rescue him, but I was heavily outnumbered, I had no choice but flee. Unlike the countless failures we encountered during our attempts on world domination in the past, this time we have complete failure, not only Wily is gone, most of the robot masters were captured by the police, I believe couple of them are still on lose though； I have to fake my own death to get away. That's the worst failure we have ever had.

Skull fortress has been taken over by the government's forces now, I suspect the company has association with the government, only that can explain adequately why the government's forces decided to attack skull fortress while me and Wily were trapped under the "Company" 's underground war factory.

I promised myself I must bring Wily back, no matter he is dead or alive, he is the closest person I ever had, he saved me, made me, I am nothing without him. I will follow him unless he says he doesn't want me around anymore. My power is not enough to take him back now, all I have to do now is to wait, and gather some powerful allies, then wait for the opportunity to strike back. I don't care how long it will take, maybe myself would be ruined in this process, I don't care about it anymore.

That's too much on my history, it will take a year if I go on and on with this, but I won't, what past is past, let's put them behind and concentrate to deal with my own problem now.

Despite I am alone, that doesn't mean I am wandering around the world without any purpose. I have to go find Dr. Cossack's daughter, I promised him when I nearly get myself killed in the underground facility, since he had helped me out, and I will keep my word to return the favor.

My journey begins on 1st May, the day I finish my contract work on the Hawaiian cruise liner. The idea of this trip was originated when I was working on the ship as a pianist, I guess there are not much people know that I can play piano, this is not one of the preprogrammed function of mine, I learn it all by myself, to fill up the boring days in skull fortress. One night when I was playing poker in the canteen with my colleagues, that's the way I "earn" some pocket money, and they don't who they are playing with, poor stupid bastards…. A Japanese chef joined in and bragged about how he travel from France to Japan on a bike when he was young, the other guys laughed and mocked him, then the chef went back to his cabin and took out an old journal, showing us the proves of his tracks.

My eyes grow wide when I saw that journal; I took it over and read it, the journal recorded this man's journey, maps, train tickets, pictures, everything is inside, and the postmarks are the most attractive thing to me. I had even asked him if I can borrow it to read it, the chef said yes, just don't wreck it because this is his treasure nowhere can buy.

I took the journal back to my own cabin and studied it through every page, just like a new world is hidden inside. There is a world I have never known. Travel on bikes? That's the way of traveling I had never thought of. I thought the humans are lazy; they only travel by cars, trains or airplanes. Besides, humans are not robots, they would get tired and hungry all the time, why would anyone perform such self-abuse action just for fun?

I was wrong, and soon I will know. There are a lot of maniacs in the world, a lot more than I imagine.

I studied that journal for all night long, my circuits were so excited that I couldn't let myself recharge, I felt like every inch of wire inside me is jumping. I still can clearly remember the frowns I saw on the manager's face the next day when I played the wrong notes for at least five times on the lunch session.

The lack of recharge for a day or two wouldn't affect a robot's performance too much. I got missing keys during the performance because my mind had been puzzled with what I read last night. I was so excited that I have finally found something I wanted to do. For an ex-terrorist bad ass robot who have lost everything, this kind of traveling suits me too well; this can take me away from the world of hatred and gets me closer to the peace of nature; make my journey more fantasy and intangible than it already is. If it is possible, I would go get a bike and begin my journey at once, but I was stuck on a ship in the middle of Pacific Ocean back then, I had to at least wait until the ship docks.

I did not pick a very good one, since I couldn't afford those nice bikes in the shop, plus I didn't know anything about bikes and I didn't have time to deliberate on it. I bought my bike from the black market, this bike looks a bit different from the others, the most significant thing is its thick top bar on the frame, it looks weird but I think it should be strong enough to support my weight. The bike cost me one hundred and thirty dollars.

That was a mistake, I should have known that when I buy cheap, that means I will have to pay more for maintenance. In fact, the bike I bought is a piece of shit, except the frame, that's Terkina's conclusion afterwards, a girl I met on my way, I will introduce her later. I didn't believe her, my thinking is it is good as long as it still able to ride on, I don't care about how it looks.

Unfortunately, she was right, the bike has a dozen of problems itself, and caused me a lot of trouble afterwards; the suspension fork was a phony, there isn't any elasticity at all; the rear derailleur is crap, it's not usable, only the front derailleur is working; The breaks are working fine, on flat terrain…when it comes to downhill, I have to use my feet as the breaks as well; The seat post is full of rust, and the seat is worn, even the last piece of sponge had came off, it's fine for my titanium ass, because I won't feel anything, but for humans…I'm afraid their butt will be slice into pieces, I don't even want to imagine how painful that would be.

Before I start my manhunt (perhaps I should call it womanhunt) mission, I spend a night in an internet café, to watch the news, check emails, get the exact location of the target I need to find, and search for anywhere interesting to be my next destination.

When I logged into my email account, all I see was the flood of advertisement emails in my box, but I still can see the few mails from those three kids in New York, they still remember me, how sweet. Oh right, this email account is setup for them specially, to be precise, these boy drag me to Internet cafe and force me to setup an email account in the first place. I don't have anyone to contact, so what do I need an email for? And that's why I didn't even have a phone when the journey began, this make me miss these boys even more.

While I was browsing the internet aimlessly, I saw an advertisement of Las Vegas, and made me think of three of my former colleagues: Ring Man, Metal Man and Crystal Man, in skull fortress we called them "masked team" because all three of them don'th have a mouth feature in their design. These three are born gamblers, cheating masters; even I don't dare play a hand with them.

The location of skull fortress is not very far from Las Vegas, less than five hundred kilometers, if these guys managed to escape when the fortress was under attack, they probably went there.

When I walked out of the internet café the next morning, I had already made up my mind：I am going to Vegas after I find the Cossack girl.

To be continued...